Detained Pakistani doctor released

Posted: Wednesday, November 20, 2002

The Associated Press

LAHORE, Pakistan (AP) - A Pakistani orthopedic surgeon, held incommunicado for a month, was freed outside his home in the pre-dawn Tuesday and said agents from the CIA and FBI had questioned him about chemical weapons and Osama bin Laden.

Dr. Amer Aziz was detained by Pakistani security agents on Oct. 21 on suspicion he had treated members of the Taliban during trips to neighboring Afghanistan.

After he was taken away, friends and family heard nothing more about him, and his detention sparked protests in Lahore and the capital, Islamabad.

Supporters demanded authorities bring him to court, or at least say where he was being held.

"Thanks be to God, I have been cleared of all the charges," Aziz said outside his home in the eastern city of Lahore.

Aziz said Americans, who identified themselves as FBI and CIA agents, asked him whether he had ever treated bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar on his frequent trips to Afghanistan.

"No such VIP was under my treatment," Aziz said hours after he was released. "I just treated patients without distinction of religion, faith, color or race."

Aziz said his interrogators accused him of "assisting al-Qaida and the Taliban leadership in the preparation of biological, chemical, radiological and nuclear weapons."

"They also questioned me on the designs and plans of al-Qaida," he said.

Aziz said he was held in Islamabad, questioned frequently but not treated poorly during his detention.

A spokesman for Pakistan's Interior Ministry, Iftikhar Ahmed, said he had no information about why Aziz was released.

Aziz's brother, Imran Aziz, told The Associated Press the doctor was brought home in the middle of the night by security agents who did not identify themselves.

"His eyes are red and swollen due to sleepless nights," Imran Aziz said.

Aziz's mother, Zakia Aziz Khan, who appeared with him Tuesday outside the home, had filed a petition with the High Court in Lahore seeking her son's release.